16th and 17th century formal handwriting forms the basis for Tinderbox, an antique script. Preserving the rough impression of a quill pen on parchment, Tinderbox evokes old manuscripts, ecclesiastical texts, gothic inscriptions, faded tattoos and horror literature; spooky calligraphy for the digital age.

Amherst is a family of blackletter-inspired typefaces. This family, created by British designer Richard Yeend in 2002, is unique in that it mains the feel of blackletter/medieval type without relying directly on historical forms. Amherst is split into two different sub-families, Amherst and Amherst Gothic. Amherst is very geometric interpretation of Fraktur. Fraktur was a style of German type very popular in central Europe from 1517 until the early 20th Century. Its letters appear "broken" at certain angles and joints. Still, we recommend using it primarily for display purposes. Amherst is available in three weights: Regular, Bold, and Heavy. Amherst Gothic is very loosely inspired by late medieval letterforms, often called Texturas or Gothics. However, the letterforms of Amherst Gothic seem just as inspired by the Art Deco movements of the 1920s and by contemporary sans serif type design as anything else. Nevertheless, certain letters in this typeface do appear more "gothic" than others, especially A, D, M, Y, d, r, and x. Amherst Gothic is made up of three fonts, Amherst Gothic Split, Amherst Gothic Split Alternate, and Amherst Gothic Italic. Amherst Gothic Split has in-lined characters, and appears very ornamented. The alternate characters in Amherst Gothic Split Alternate are quite medieval in their appearance. Amherst Gothic Italic is the least medieval-looking of the set; its characters are very round, and more geometric. All six styles of the Amherst Family are OpenType format fonts, and include old style figures.

In 1903, faced with the welter of sanserif typefaces offered by ATF, Morris Fuller Benton designed News Gothic, which became a 20th-century standard. In 1995 Tobias Frere-Jones studied drawings in the Smithsonian and started a redesign. Cyrus Highsmith reviewed News Gothic, and with the Font Bureau studio expanded it into Benton Sans, a far-reaching new series, with matched weights and widths, offering performance well beyond the limits of the original; FB 1995-2012

The 52 characters assembled by this Gothic font, Prince of Darkness, were once interred in coffins onboard the Russian cargo ship Demeter, when it set sail for the sleepy shores of Whitby, Northern England ages ago. Hunted down by Vampire Hunters for century after century, this noble Transylvanian set has hidden for years in England and Eastern Europe. Now, Prince of Darkness is available as a font with more Layers than Dracula has Lairs.

Frederic Goudy designed National Old Style Roman in 1916. It is loosely based on a logo he lettered for the National Biscuit Company in 1901. Steve Matteson expanded on Goudy’s original by designing a bold, semibold and matching italics. While much of Goudy’s work is strongly influenced by Venetian types of the 15th and 16th centuries - this design has a truly American quality about it. The design is useful for text or headlines that captures a sense of Americana.

This face is a bit of a time traveler. It combines the lowercase from a font called simply Square Gothic from the 1888 James Conner’s Sons specimen book with the uppercase of Morris Fuller Benton’s 1932 monocase masterwork Agency Gothic, resulting in a high-tech typeface right at home in the twenty-first Century. Available in three weights. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set

FlyHigh is a decorative text face with slab serifs. It comes in eight styles: plain, semibold, bold, extrabold, italic, semibold italic, bold italic, and extrabold italic. Its low x-height makes it more appropriate for uses such as invitations than for book text.

The first Tuscan lettering was penned in the mid-fourth century by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus. The style was still in common usage as calligraphy when Vincent Figgins designed the first Antique Tuscan for print in 1817. Antique and Gothic Tuscan woodtype fonts appeared in the 1830’s. By the 1850’s, Tuscan fonts had become popular in America. These styles continued in print use into the twentieth century. Tuscan Antique and Gothic styles, borrowed from print and calligraphy, were perfect for signs, posters, handbills and other large format advertising. Sign painter, Frank Atkinson demonstrated several Tuscan forms in his book Sign Painting, A Complete Manual. Modified & Spurred Tuscan Romans were inspired by this and other works of the same period.

P22 Kelly is a Celtic-styled uncial font with a medieval gothic flavor and an overall contemporary feel. The font is an addition to Ted Staunton’s collection of historical and period-based fonts. It is ideal for uses that need to evoke the Celtic spirit or the medieval period. Based on half-uncial Irish monastic handwriting of the 8th to 10th centuries, but instead of having a traditional upright stress, has an italic slant. Some Gothic influence is evident—like the thorn-like tick-marks decorating the capitals—but the rounded forms of h, m, n, u emphasize a wide, open, horizontal visual texture. The font is named in honor of the Book of Kells, the 8th-century masterpiece of Celtic calligraphic art, which is kept in Trinity College, Dublin.

In 1899, Robert Wiebking (who worked for a number of foundries in his time) designed an all-caps typeface named Engravers Roman (see Engravers #2). American Type Founders, Inc. (ATF) released a heavier variant in 1902, Engravers Bold, designed by Morris Fuller Benton. Engravers Bold was also released by the Barnhart Brothes & Spinder foundry. Today, Linotype's Engravers brings turn-of-the-century elegance directly to your keyboard. Use the Engravers typeface on any formal piece -- from table cards, to menus, invitations, or advertising work. Engravers is similar to Copperplate Gothic, Sackers Gothic and Nicolas Cochin.

Vicentina has been created starting from gothic cursive calligraphy, widely used in Italy during XIV century. The ductus of Vicentina has been derived from the documents redacted by Master Domenico Dominici from Vicenza, while most of the inspiration comes from books preserved in the archives of Orvieto Cathedral (Archivi dell'Opera del Duomo di Orvieto). As a result, Vicentina takes form with an elegant, but fast and simplified ductus respect to gothic graphs, rich in ligatures and with over 400 OpenType glyphs, in perfect harmony with the rules of readability of a modern typeface.

Mentone is a new general purpose typeface, an attempt at extending the line of the great sans-serifs of the previous century, Frutiger - Stone Sans - Myriad. The font has round corners and subtle chamfers, which are all but invisible at text sizes, but add an upbeat, irreverent expression at display sizes. The typeface is named after the beautiful bayside suburb of Melbourne, Australia, where the designer lives. This new version (2.01) was spaced and kerned by Igino Marini of iKern. The semibold cuts are now free!

New Old English was prompted by two Victorian coins, the mid nineteenth century gothic crown and gothic florin, which featured a gothic script lowercase with quite modern looking, short ascenders and descenders enabling it to fit snugly around the queen’s head or heraldic motif. With thicker hairline strokes than normal Old English, a less sharp, warmer feel than lettering scripted with a pen, and circular instead of rhombic punctuation, this font is an attempt to capture the round-cornered softness of the die-struck lowercase blackletter. To increase harmony and homogeneity between the cases, the uppercase is narrower and simpler than is customary, without the excessive width or antiquated flamboyance of the traditional blackletter. It might even allow text set in capitals to look acceptable.